Global Rich List

Income Calculation

To get the most accurate placing possible, please include your annual salary after tax, plus any other money that you receive each year: benefits, pensions, money from relatives, even your student loan.

Doesn’t sound like much does it? But that’s enough to change a life. So, fancy making a big difference with that small percentage? Help our chosen charity and donate this amount, or whatever you can afford, now.

Why are you doing this?

In this era of austerity, we’re still as obsessed with wealth (or our apparent lack of it) as ever. But while we may not all be oil barons or oligarchs, the vast majority of us are better off than we realise. We wanted to help people to see this. And raise some much needed funds for our favourite charities while we did it.

Who are you?

We’re Poke: a creative company with digital at its heart. We build simple things and complex, living systems and we’re proud to say you won’t always be able to tell which is which. Big, small, sexy, sensible, or (like this) thought provoking – whatever works.

How do you calculate all of this?

We've offered two possible rankings – by income and by wealth. This requires a slightly different approach for each track; we've also tried to achieve the right balance between usability and rigour.

For the income track, we've used the most recent (2008) statistics from the World Bank, based on household surveys. Here we rank you against the entire world population at the time of the surveys, estimated at 6.69 billion people.

For the wealth track, we’ve primarily relied on 2012 estimates from Credit Suisse, who have focussed on the adult population of the world, estimated as 4.59 billion people.

For currency conversion we use Purchasing Power Parity Dollars (PPP$) in order to take into account the difference in cost of living between countries; PPP$ are also less susceptible to short term fluctuations.

After calculating the distribution of wealth or income, we then use a statistical model to estimate your rank.

Notes on calculated statistics

For the Malaria net statistic, we used GiveWell.org - this is fully costed and takes into account administrative costs.

We estimated the price of a 330ml can of premium-brand cola to be 0.75 USD (PPP$ take care of the rest).

We took the cost of feeding a family of four a very basic diet to be $60 per month. This statistic came from the World Food Programme (a UN agency), although there is little supporting information connected with this data point.

For working time statistics, we assume people work 1,920 hours a year (40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year). For the iPhone-only statistic (sorry Android fans), we assume you work 8 hours a day.